37 Stress Management Tips from the Experts

Being overly anxious is not just a mental hazard; it's a physical one too. For your emotional and bodily benefit, we've consulted experts and come up with 37 easy, natural stress management alternatives to anxiety.

21. Boost Your Vitamin Intake
Elizabeth Somer, R.D., author of Food and Mood (Owl Books, 1999), in Salem, OR, recommends that women take a daily multivitamin and mineral formula that contains between 100% and 300% of the recommended dietary allowances of vitamin B, as well as the minerals calcium, magnesium, chromium, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, selenium and zinc. Avoid stress formulas, which often contain large amounts of randomly formulated nutrients, such as the B vitamins, but little or nothing else, Somer says.

22. Get Horizontal
If sex has been on the bottom of your to-do list for too long, move it to the top. Sex increases levels of endorphins, those mood-boosting chemicals in the brain, and it’s one of the best total-body relaxers around, says Louanne Cole Weston, Ph.D., a sex therapist in Sacramento, CA. Make a date with your mate, and don’t let anything get in the way.

24. Space Out
Look out the window and find something natural that captures your imagination, advises Dr. Sobel. Notice the clouds rolling by or the wind in the trees.

25. Try Tea
By now most of us know about the calming properties of chamomile tea. But a steaming cup of catnip, passionflower, skullcap or kava kava also work, according to Dr. Duke. Whether you use tea bags or loose tea (one teaspoon of tea per cup of boiling water), steep for about 10 minutes to get the full benefits of the herbs.